Software defined Networks (SDNs) have drawn much attention both from
academia and industry over the last few years. Despite the fact that
underlying ideas already exist through areas such as P2P applications
and active networks (e.g. virtual topologies and dynamic changes of the
network via software), only now has the technology evolved to a point
where it is possible to scale the implementations, which justifies the
high interest in SDNs nowadays. In this article, the JISA Editors invite
five leading scientists from three continents (Raouf Boutaba, David
Hutchison, Raj Jain, Ramachandran Ramjee, and Christian Esteve
Rothenberg) to give their opinions about what is really new in SDNs. The
interviews cover whether big telecom and data center companies need to
consider using SDNs, if the new paradigm is changing the way computer
networks are understood and taught, and what are the open issues on the
topic.